Because the character he portrays on his show is a satirical opposite to bill o'reily. Also you don't have to be an atheist to support gay marriage but you do have to go against the christian holy book to support it.

He is probably well aware, since he teaches the book. The bible also talks about slavery and sexism. But those things (mostly) get ignored. It's just that the culture had long since disregarded those things. The culture is slowly doing the same with the fake phobia known as homophobia. In a few decades, the religious people will disregard that part of the bible as well.

They are getting to the point where they are just going to disregard the whole bible as metaphors. I'm even hearing people completely disregarding the old testament....I don't understand how you can cut out half your religious text and still believe in it XD

As an atheist, I recognize the fact that (on average) the average theist has more life satisfaction. This could be for a number of reasons, mainly the social facilitation and support of religious groups. Secondly, the calm on subjects such as death, morality, etc. Of course there are those self-proclaimed religious that do not go to church or anything but just believe in god. They're the default, others become more devout and others reject faith in deities. So that happiness, that comfort, is why religion became so popular. They feel part of a group, humans are group animals. They are part of a group. That's why many religious people "force" their faith on others. Because they see their faith as comfort. They're not giving you beliefs, they're giving you comfort in their eyes.

Of course there are others who carry this comfort into corruption. The Spanish Inquisition, the Medieval Popes, The Christian Lords of Grenada, the missionaries and the extremists who distort their religion.

The first religious sites have been set in Turkey, they were discovered to be older than some of the eldest civilizations. We used to think religion came after civilization. But was it the church first and then the city around it? These old religious sites were animists, spirits of nature and animal deities. The comfort, the easy explanations they bring, the coming-together, the congregation.

Religion might indeed see its books as metaphor, many already do. The moderates do, and they're the majority. But that comfort, that happiness, that grouping. Religion will never die. Regardless of its change. And done right, religion has provided catharsis for arts of all sorts. Our best arts (in every sense) may sometimes hate the church, but respect religion.

The old testament isn't being 'disregarded', we as gentiles were never judged by Levitican law. Jesus never said anything about homosexuals, and Paul's comments on it refer to sex without love as he was speaking of the lawlessness of the members of the church prior to their inception into the faith.

that's not the point. stephen may say he's a roman catholic, but thats to keep his appeal to the religious community. imagine if he said he was actually an atheist. it would be in the news, and a lot of people would know about it, and the show's ratings would go down.

Atheism has no basis, or culture or anything like that. It's just a denial of religion. You don't even have to believe in evolution to be an atheist, you just have to not be religious. But that presents another problem. The atheist channel has nothing to post about. Since atheism is a rejection of religion, all the posts in this channel can only be rejecting religion .

Ergo, The only posts here can be rejecting religion. The atheist channel as you may know it does not exist. Only the rejecting of religion.

Effectively, that means that this crap is the only thing you will ever get out of this channel.

it doesnt matter what the definition of atheism is. What matters is the beliefs that atheists tend to hold, and Colbert is able to appeal to my beliefs, as well as other atheists. That's why it's in this section!